Album Review: Balmorhea's "Clear Language"

The orchestral band releases its first full-length album in half a decade

BY Bryan C. Parker

Published: November 6, 2017

BalmorheaClear Language

It’s intriguing, bold even, for an instrumental band to reference language in an album title. It suggests that the clearest communication might be independent of words and instead rooted in the emotions and expressions of others. Once we resort to words, perhaps we’ve already diluted the very ideas we sought to express. In this way Balmorhea’s new album is like a conversation with oneself, an internal monologue, ripe for reflection and meditation.

Serene, gently unfolding post-rock develops the wordless language on the 10-track collection. It’s the orchestral band’s first full-length album in half a decade, and despite violinist Aisha Burns relocating to Massachusetts while releasing her first solo full-length, and founding member Rob Lowe (not to be confused with the actor) also launching a solo career this past summer, the group remains as cohesive and pensive as ever.

Sustained guitar notes, sparse piano, and gorgeous violin punctuate sprawling run-on sentences of ambient electronic waves. The addition of tonal textures—like the somber brass that defines the album’s longest track, “Slow Stone,” before it dissolves into a frenzy of distortion—deepens the moods.

Just as humans connect through love and kindness, Balmorhea communicates through shifting, thoughtful feelings: the sunny levity of “All Flowers,” the aloof distance of “Dreamt,” or the nervous tension of “Waiting Itself.” Of course, as with any language, translations vary, and individual listeners will make out their own diverse shapes in this reflecting pool of sound. Who needs words when the music is this evocative?